My challenge for 2015: try something new every day for a whole year.

Days 295-300 but that doesn’t matter right now

I remember Friday morning, joking about how I don’t consider Friday, 13th am unlucky day and how I think it’s just a matter of your own attitude.
Well, and then I remember reading worrying news as I was going to bed, hoping to wake up to things not actually being as it seemed.
I don’t need to tell you what happened. All I can say is how speechless I am that terror has once again struck in the heart of Europe. As in January, I cannot write about my silly challenge when these terrible things are on all our minds.

There’s been a lot of talk about why everyone is so upset about the events in Paris when so many people die in other countries all the time. I personally think it’s not that we care more about the death of a certain group of people than that of another – I think it’s simpler than that: why Europeans have been so shocked by the Paris attacks is that’s it’s so close to home, that it makes people think “That could have been me!”.

I honestly hope there will be a peaceful way out of this – although I don’t know how realistic that is when there is already talk of the Third World War.

And what I also hope is that this will not further increase hatred against refugees. Even if one or to of the terrorists came into Europe by pretending to be refugees, that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t have gotten here in another way. And it most certainly doesn’t make the tens of thousands of people seeking refuge in our midst dangerous. They are victims of the same conflicts that have brought forward the acts of terrorism we’ve witnessed over recent weeks and months.

Please, be safe, world. I want our children and their children to live in peace and safety one day.